Hello, hello, welcome back to all my faithful readers and hopefully new ones for 2026. I hope you all had great Christmas and New Year's celebrations. Ours was a mixed bag of both good and trying times as the flu came into our home right before Christmas. It started with the second oldest grandchild the day he arrived, and spread through the entire family for two weeks. Everyone got sick except me; I have no idea why I was spared other than my daily "Cuppa" of mushroom coffee. But enough Christmas Vacation talk, I will share more on that on Sunday's Lifestyle Post along with lots of photos and videos.
Today I want to resume my regular blogging schedule starting with a return to covering all of our fall trips. I know it must seem silly to post fall travel trips in the middle of winter, but that's the way my schedule works, so if you see any place that might interest you for next fall, just "Pin" it for next year.
Wisconsin leads the nation in cranberry production. It is our state's largest fruit industry and we grow about 60% of the nation's cranberries. Most of the cranberry farms are located in central or northern Wisconsin, where I live. I have the pleasure of driving past cranberry marsh's quite often, but I have never seen one in operation ( when they flood the fields and all the cranberries rise to the top producing a sea of red.) So this was the year I decided it was finally time to take a cranberry marsh tour...or so I thought.
Even though there are cranberry marshes and cranberry festivals much closer to our home, with the Warren's Cranberry Festival being the largest and most famous, we decided to have a weekend adventure and drive up to the tippy top of Wisconsin and go to the Eagle River Cranberry Festival. We had never visited Eagle River before and we wanted to check it out. I'm so glad we did because it is such a cute town and they have a great bike trail we hope to ride someday. Anyway, back to the cranberry festival.
The town of Eagle River offered Cranberry Marsh Tours so I signed up for one. They provide transportation to and from the Marsh and the bus driver gives you a lot of great history about the town of Eagle River on the way to and from the marsh, which we found very interesting.
When we got to the marsh, we didn't even have to get off the bus. They drove us right into the marshes and explained the entire process of how the cranberries were planted, grown and harvested. However, my dream of seeing a "sea of red" didn't come true as it was such a hot day they could not harvest the cranberries. It was early October but it was in the 80's, which is unusually hot for Wisconsin. If they harvested cranberries in this much heat, they would quickly spoil. So, I can't show you a photo of a"sea of red" but I can show you a photo of a cranberry bed. Pictured below is a cranberry field. The red tint in the photo are the little cranberries that grow on vines close to the ground. Now if you look to the left of the photo you will see green grass that rises about two feet above the cranberry bed, that is because they flood this bed just enough to cause the cranberries to rise to the surface where they then can easily harvest them. Having the cranberry bed lower than then the grass keeps the water and cranberries inside when it is flooded.
Here is a far away shot of part of the cranberry farm.
After we toured the marsh on the bus, they let us get out and walk around the grounds for 45 minutes. Here we could visit the marsh store to buy cranberry products, we could taste a lot of different things made with cranberries, and there were more educational displays like this cranberry harvesting tractor.
You could still see some cranberries caught in the chain of the tractor.
This display showed how buoyant cranberries are. You could put your hands inside the tank and feel how deep the water is, yet all the cranberries float on top.
The marsh we toured was the Lake Nokomis Cranberry Farm. Pictured below is their gift shop.
There was entertainment at the farm.
I loved enjoying the fall foliage this weekend too! It was an added blessing, in addition to the festival.
Hubby enjoyed a brief game of hoops. I think he was the oldest "kid" there.
After the tour, we headed to the Eagle River Cranberry Festival. Their events were held both downtown and at their festival grounds. We decided to check the downtown out first.
They close off Main Street for the festival, and vendors put up tents in the middle of the street. Our first purchase was a cranberry scone...yummy.
We really enjoyed Eagle River's downtown and felt a lot of their shops were really cool and places I'd like to shop. So many small town main streets don't have interesting stores, but this one had a woman's clothing store I really liked, and several sporting goods stores.
The town of Eagle River also has an old train depot that has been turned into a museum.
Hubby always enjoys looking at things and stories from the past.
The train depot still had its old ticket window intact.
All around town were cute displays celebrating the cranberry festival.
Next we took the shuttle over to the fairgrounds for the actual cranberry festival. The town offers free shuttle rides all around town during the festival.
The festival is mostly arts and crafts, food trucks, and anything else you usually see for sale at a fair. We didn't spend much time here as we are not ones to spend money on things we can make ourselves. I usually use these fairs to get ideas and then I go home and "diy" it. But we did some great cheese, after all, Wisconsin has the best cheese!
The next morning we went to check out the Bearskin State Trail before we headed home. The trail head starts right in town and is both a hiking and biking trail. However, even though we walked part of it, and there were plenty of people walking it the morning we were there, I think it's more of a biking trail because it so long; it is 21.5 miles and is the old railroad between Minoquoa and Tomahawk Wisconsin.
My favorite part of this trail was all the bridges (or what they call "converted railroad trestle") going over all the lakes. There are 16 bridges that you can cross on this trail and boy, do you get the gorgeous lake views.
I love how the canopy of trees at the end of the bridge provide a mystical entrance to the Bear Skin Trail.
Just look at some of these stunning lake views! Wow!
We knew we couldn't hike the whole trail as it was so long, so we had to keep in mind that we'd have to walk all the way back, but I think we went over at least three bridges before we turned around.
There were so many gorgeous lake homes and neighborhoods that we walked through on this trail, which was part of the joy for me as I love to look at beautiful homes. This little neighborhood had its own canal to dock their boats.
We enjoyed this trail so much we plan to return in the fall and bike the entire thing. I got an e-bike as my birthday/Christmas present this year, and I can't wait to use it! I haven't ridden it yet as it is winter.
I hope you enjoyed my Cranberry Festival Tale. I will be back next week with another Fall Adventure!
Have A Great Day! Amy
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